NEW DELHI — A court in India has ordered the country’s federal government to restore the X social media account belonging to the youth Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), more than a month after it was taken offline. The account had attracted approximately 200,000 followers in just a matter of days after its creation, according to the party’s founder and a lawyer connected to the case.
The government had defended its decision to block the account in court, arguing that content posted there could have sparked disorder during a national medical college entrance examination. That exam had to be held again after its question papers were leaked to the public.
The CJP has been staging sit-in demonstrations for the past two weeks, calling on the education minister to step down in response to the exam scandal. While its main account remained blocked, the party continued reaching its X audience through a secondary account.
The Delhi High Court issued its order after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government indicated it had no opposition to restoring the account, according to the lawyer who spoke with Reuters.
CJP founder Abhijeet Dipke celebrated the development on X, calling it a “big win” for the party, the movement, and for “free speech and digital rights.”
However, as of Tuesday evening, the account was still showing as restricted within India, with its page displaying a message stating it had been withheld “in response to a legal demand.”
The CJP, which describes its membership as representing “the lazy, the unemployed, and the chronically correct,” boasts close to 22 million followers on Instagram. By comparison, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party — which has labeled the CJP part of “an anti-India gang” — has just over 9 million followers on the platform.
